Posted!

Join the Conversation

UN: Spread of polio now a world health emergency

Associated Press, AP 7:48 a.m. EDT May 5, 2014

A landslide-affected child receives polio vaccination drops during aid distribution at the scene of the disaster in Argo district of Badakhshan on May 4, 2014. Aid groups rushed to reach survivors of a landslide in northern Afghanistan that entombed a village, killing hundreds of people and leaving 700 families homeless in the mountains.(Photo: SHAH MARAI AFP/Getty Images)

LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization says the spread of polio is an international public health emergency that threatens to infect other countries with the crippling disease.

In an announcement Monday, the agency described the ongoing polio outbreaks in Asia, Africa and the Middle East as an "extraordinary" situation requiring a coordinated international response.

Polio usually strikes children under five and is usually spread via infected water. There is no specific treatment or cure, but several vaccines exist.

Experts are particularly concerned the virus continues to pop up in countries previously free of the disease, such as Syria, Somalia and Iraq — where civil war or unrest complicates efforts to contain the virus.

Some critics say the rapid spread of polio could unravel the nearly three-decade effort to eradicate it.